Statistics show that approximately 20% of all accidents are related to lack of vision in the “Dead Angle” or “Blind Spot” of a vehicle. This means that approximately 800.000 accidents in the western world are related to this cause every year. Impacts of this category, diagonally from behind and by surprise cause serious damage to vehicle passengers traveling in the cars involved in accidents.
A lack of vision in the dead angle or blind spot is a serious traffic and security problem, which up to date has not been presented a technically satisfactory solution. The course of events, when a vehicle is impacted from behind, laterally or diagonally is often causing serious damage to passengers. These types of impacts conventionally cause a rotation movement which in its turn often dislocates the driver and passengers from their normal position in the seats and hence diminish effects from seat-belts and airbags. This leads to risks for severe damage and high risks for disabilities and paralysis.
Much has been accomplished over the years to improve the range of vision for the driver of a vehicle. Although, the blind spot or the dead angle still constitutes a problem. Solutions introduced up to now have not achieved a clear cut aid for specific detection of other vehicles in for instance the blind spot. Some of the solutions are technically too complicated and hence too expensive to be attached as a feature on standard vehicles.
Spherical mirrors or divided mirrors have not provided the desired results either. When addressing the issue of blind spot detection it is very important to take into consideration the human capacity of perception and interpretation of an image in a question of instants. The image or traffic scenario perceived with a glimpse in the rear mirrors must be clear and not exposed to second thoughts, doubts or interpretation problems. A warning should hence only comprise what is not seen or perceived at longer distances in the mirror. An overlapping, interfering or unclear information will only confuse, cause doubts and eventually an erratic maneuver by the driver, e.g., two images of the same vehicle. A device that provides warning signals for vehicles clearly seen in the rear mirror, will eventually on one hand create false positives. The driver believes that the vehicle(s) seen in the mirror are causing the alarm, while an unseen vehicle is located in the blind spot. On the other hand there is a risk that a device with longer detection area will diminish the frequency of looking in the mirrors, since drivers eventually will rely on the warning device. A warning device should not replace frequent looks in the mirror. This will increase risks and deteriorate traffic security rather than improve security.
By cross analyzing available statistics it is although fair to assume that approximately 20% of accidents involving personal injury are related to the blind spot problem. This means that approximately 250.000 accidents per annum in the EU are related to blind spot situations. This figure extrapolated to the rest of the western world and Japan would give an approximate of 800.000 accidents pro year.
Systems utilized for preventing collision, include those using video camera detection, which suffer sever drawbacks by not being able to measure distances.
The applicant of the present invention holds the Swedish Patent with the publication No. 520 360, which concerns blind spot detection combined with wheel angle detection compared to vehicle speed, and vehicle direction indications for trigging an alarm. This patent corresponds to the international application PCT/SE00/02564 with publication No. WO 01/45067.
It is appreciated that the detector of the present invention is not restricted to a blind spot detector, but also covers detectors for sensing objects in front of a vehicle and when reversing it. Furthermore, the detector can be mounted on the side of a vehicle or at any suitable place on a vehicle in order to perform as an object detector.